


Under The Skin

by Jocondite (jocondite)



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-14
Updated: 2010-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-21 09:27:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocondite/pseuds/Jocondite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny runs into a drunk, possibly high, definitely inappropriate Evan at a club.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under The Skin

Johnny is enjoying a nice, well-deserved night off when Fate, or possibly Nemesis, demonstrates that it absolutely has it out for him. Someone smacks into him from behind and jostles his drink, and normally the wave of Long Island Iced Tea splashing up the sleeve of his jacket would be the bad-karma portion of the evening, but that's just the first shoe. The second drops when he turns around, eyes narrowing, and finds himself staring at a horribly familiar chin.

"Oh my god, no," he says. "No, no, no."

The eyes above the chin squint down blearily at him. It takes them a second, but finally they focus, and a little light of recognition shines through their murky depths. "Hey," Evan Lysacek says, sounding vaguely pleased to see him. "Johnny Weir! What are you doing here?"

There are two answers to this question. The first is boring and factual, and basically contains the bare bones of information; to wit, that Johnny is in L.A. for a few meetings, that Johnny was bored, and that Johnny decided to have a drink and lurk in the corner of the club, vicariously watching other people dance and hook up and snapping at anyone who tried anything with him. The second is directly combative and relays none of this information. Johnny lifts his chin.

"What are you doing here? Hanging out in gay bars is not conducive to your whole lead-lined closet thing, Evan. Did your handlers let you off the choke-chain?"

"I like it here," Evan says, sounding confused. "It's shiny. There are lights. And people." He smiles, an empty, happy smile that somehow gives Johnny chills. Evan doesn't like being out of control, at least not around other skaters, so he hasn't seen Evan this drunk before. Actually, he's not sure he's seen Evan drunk ever. "Pretty people."

"There are boys," he corrects. "Pretty _boys_. You're so drunk, oh my god. Go away and bother someone else."

Evan keeps smiling at him like the sense of Johnny's words has failed entirely to register. His teeth are unnaturally white against his fake bake, and his eyes, the more Johnny glares into them, are totally empty-looking. He looks like a waxwork of himself. Johnny has a lot of vehement, frequently-aired opinions about Evan Lysacek's IQ, but –

"Oh my _god,_ " he says. "Are you high?" He's tempted to follow it up with 'Are you stupid?', because as far as he knows, Evan's still keeping his options for next season open, but the question would be totally rhetorical, so he doesn't bother.

Evan shakes his head slowly, the vacant smile still on his face. "No." He waves the hand holding the bottle about vaguely – god, Evan Lysacek is exactly the sort of douche who would order a crappy American beer at a gay bar. Johnny should probably just be grateful he's not wearing an unironic trucker hat, but the black beanie he's wearing instead is revolting enough on its own. "Only one. Two. Not many."

"You are such a bad liar. Let loose all on your own without a publicist's cheatsheet, it's totally pathetic. You're barely standing up straight."

Later, Johnny will hate himself for doing it, because it's the last point at which he can extricate himself without any sense of screwed-up responsibility, but at this moment in time he's just annoyed by Evan's existence and Evan ruining his evening and Evan maybe being so done with competitive skating as a back-up plan that he can afford to fuck around and have fun, so he leans forward and sniffs accusingly at Evan's boring black shirt. It smells faintly unwashed, like old cologne and a touch of sweat, but there's no sickly sticky smell of weed. He starts to lean back, frowning.

"Pretty boy," Evan repeats, right next to his ear, and his huge hand closes on Johnny's hip.

Either Someone Up There hates him, or he's snapped and had a complete mental break where he's forced to confront the most horrible things his id can throw at him. Johnny can't think of any other semi-reasonable explanations that would explain a listing, crazy-eyed, _beanie-wearing_ Evan Lysacek grinding ineptly against his thigh.

"Get off!" He shoves wildly at him. "Let go of me!"

Evan makes a humming noise, his thumb stroking against Johnny's stomach, and then he starts nuzzling at Johnny's neck, and it’s surprising enough that Johnny stops shoving for a second. Evan’s stubble is scratching at his throat and his mouth is warm and wet and –

Holy shit, Evan is so wasted, and possibly – no, definitely – getting hard, and Johnny still can't believe this is even happening enough to end it decisively.

He gropes for the back of Evan's neck, finds it, and roughly pinches the skin over his nape, digging his fingertips deep into the tendons. It works on animals, after all.

Evan makes a hurt noise and lets go. The hand that had been getting overly intimate with Johnny's hipbone goes to his neck.

"Ouch," he says. His eyes are accusing and kind of betrayed, like a calf that's found itself on a ramp into a meatgrinder.

"I am not going to apologise for making you stop molesting me," Johnny says, breathing hard. "When you're sober, you'll thank me, because when you're sober, you would _never, ever_ do that."

He fusses with his jacket lapels and runs a hand over his hair, trying to think. He wants to push into the crowd and pretend he hasn't seen Evan and try and salvage the remains of a not-entirely-awful evening, but. Johnny feels qualified to state that Evan Lysacek, in anything close to his right mind, wouldn't touch him intimately with a ten-foot pole, a sentiment Johnny shares and returns. Other guys, yes, maybe; that's between Evan and his closet door. Johnny, no. Therefore –

"Let me look at your eyes," he says sharply, and grabs Evan's jaw between his finger and thumb, trying to angle it so he can see better. Evan stands still and lets him maneuver his face docilely enough, but the light's too poor to tell anything about Evan's pupils. His eyes are really fucking dark to start with, anyway.

Johnny lets go and wipes his fingers off on his pants. "Did you come here with someone?"

Another dopey smile. "Just me."

And there goes Johnny's night.

He's not exactly Pollyanna, but he's his mother’s son, and he’s not enough of an asshole to leave anyone so completely fucked up on their own. Not even his worst rival. Not even pond scum. Not even _Evan_. Evan, who is currently trying to lean on him, like Johnny's not half a foot shorter than him, and rubbing his horrible face against the curve of Johnny's neck and the shoulder of his jacket, which is now completely irretrievable and will have to be burned. He weighs way, way too much for someone who is mostly just height.

"You live in LA, don't you? Evan. _Evan_." It takes a slap to get Evan's attention - a small slap against his cheek, nothing major, but Johnny's not going to deny it's kind of satisfying. He's not an asshole, but he's not a saint, either. "Stop acting like someone's roofied you, it's freaking me out. Do you remember where you live?"

"'M only tired," Evan says vaguely. He looks like he's losing focus again, and his arm is curling around Johnny's waist like some sort of hideous creeper, so Johnny slaps him a second time. It's still fun.

" _Evan_. Address. Why do they let you out without a collar?"

"Mm."

"I’m getting you out of here, okay?" Johnny means it in a 'give me your address now or forever hold your peace' kind of way, but Evan brightens a little like he thinks he's picked up.

"Your place?"

"Yes, Evan, to my place," Johnny agrees wearily, because he doesn't know what else he can do, and right now he'll pretend to agree to anything if it will help get Evan with his moony black eyes of horrifying emptiness out of there.

 **ii.**

The taxi ride is a nightmare. Evan drunk and potentially roofied apparently equals an Evan horribly affectionate. Johnny could deal with grabby hands, but the way Evan keeps trying to hug him creeps him out, and he spends most of the short journey back to his hotel trying to shrug him off. When the taxi stops, he manages to find Evan's wallet in his back pocket, and abstracts a few notes; it's not stealing if the wallet's owner is right there, watching you take out the cash with a sort of blurry benignity, and you're paying for carting his drunk ass around anyway.

Hunting for Evan's wallet seems to have given Evan the wrong idea, though, or reminded him of earlier, unfinished business.

" _Hands_ ," Johnny snaps. "Oh my god, you drunken asshole, stop it, I'm trying to help carry your dumb ass, god knows why, and I don't need you making it more difficult."

"I'm not drunk," Evan mumbles. "I'm just tired."

"Walk the rest of the way to the elevator, then," Johnny says. He throws Evan's arm off his shoulder. Evan wobbles, takes a few faltering steps, and stumbles over his own feet. Johnny grabs his arm before he quite ends up in an ungainly pile on the carpet, and grimly hauls him upright. "See?"

"I only had one," Evan says, staring sadly down at his feet like they don't belong to him.

"Sometimes it only takes one, buttercup." Johnny pushes him into the elevator. The creepy clinging continues when the doors close behind them, and Johnny stares blankly at his dulled reflection and tries to figure out how he ended up in a big metal box with his grabby-handed arch-nemesis. He’s going to curl up into a horribly violated ball just as soon as he dumps Lysacek somewhere. Maybe he can take an extra-long shower and use an exfoliating scrub. " _Hands,_ " he repeats, slapping them away, and thank god, the elevator stops.

Evan nearly goes down again, getting out, and Johnny tugs him ungently back to his feet. He tries to unwind Evan and prop him against the wall while he gets his keycard out, but Evan refuses to be unwound, so Johnny stands there fishing through his stupidly oversized purse with Evan Lysacek pressed against his back and hugging him around the waist, breathing moistly against the back of his neck.

He hates everything, especially the prompting of consciousness that made him hustle Evan out of the bar in the first place. He should have left him there to make a fool of himself in public and get his ugly orange face splashed all over the tabloids. Of course, it’s equally likely that Evan might have let himself get picked up by the wrong sort of person, and Johnny’s not quite bitter enough to wish that on him.

Evan starts kissing the ridge of his spine just as Johnny gets the door open, and he jerks them both forward with a force that’s at least ninety percent horror.

“Take your shoes off and just – lie down,” he orders.

“And my pants?”

“Whatever,” Johnny says. “I have to go hyperventilate in the bathroom. Take a nap.”

"You'll be right back?"

"I'll be right back," Johnny lies. He shuts the bathroom door, locks it, and pulls out his phone and hits speed-dial.

"Evan Lysacek is half-naked in my hotel room." He lowers his voice, but it doesn’t kill the frantic panicky edge to it. "I think he thinks I brought him here for sex–"

"Ha, ha," Paris says half a country away, sounding bored. "I totally believe you."

"Paris," Johnny says. Actually, this needs the big guns. "Justin. _I am not lying to you._ I ran into him at a club, and he was all weird, and I think someone gave him something because he was – he was just weird."

"So you decided to pick him up? Assuming I believe you, which I don't, your standards are seriously slipping."

"I couldn't just leave him there – I'm calling you for help, you asshole. I think he might have taken something. You know about stuff about that."

" _Harsh_ ," Paris says. "And also, like I have to dope my lays."

"That's not what I meant,” Johnny says. "Seriously, he's all strung-out and weird. What do I do?"

"Take embarrassing pictures of him while he's passed out?"

“Well, obviously, but that's not helpful!”

Paris sighs like his life is so, so hard. He’s not the one with an addled archrival invading his personal bubble. “Just watch him, I guess. Unless he's seizing or something. You think he needs medical help?”

“He’s not – no,” Johnny says. That would open up a whole new can of worms. “Wow, this is so unhelpful.”

“Love you too, baby, and fuck you,” Paris says. He sighs. “Call me back if you have issues.”

 

 **iii.**

When Johnny cracks the bathroom door open, all he can hear is deep, even breathing. Evan is fast asleep, flat on his back in Johnny's cushy hotel bed. He makes an odd picture, fully dressed in black from his chin to his wrists, his stupid hat still squashed flat over his hair; like some half-ninja creature that's only human below his navel. From the waist down, he's all stupid whitebread boxers and long brown legs, all sinew and bone.

Johnny can't do anything about the turtleneck, but he removes the beanie, pinching the greasy thing fastidiously between his fingers. Evan doesn't lurch up and grab his wrist like he'd half been expecting, so Johnny tosses it into a corner.

Somehow Evan looks even more tired without it. His face looks like a dead thing under the harsh light, the skin pouching under his eyes like it's trying to slough away from his skull. The idiot has tried to fix it with concealer five times too pale for his skin tone. His eyes are faintly screwed up, like sleep is something that comes hard for him, that requires work, or something he has to actively resist even when he's passed out.

Johnny makes jokes about Evan being a robot or an automaton or whatever, but it's still weird to see him so completely there but not _there_ , his face slack and blank. All he needs to complete the look, really, is his big hands crossed on his chest like a Crusader. Johnny almost freaks himself out with that thought, but then Evan's chest moves and okay, he's still breathing, he hasn't had some sort of mysterious overdose and left Johnny implicated in his death.

He needs to turn Evan onto his side. That's what you're meant to do with drunk people, but with Evan it feels like trying to turn the Titanic before it hits the iceberg, if the Titanic was a floppy deadweight that seemed to take silent and malicious pleasure in resisting his efforts. It takes a lot of tugging on Evan's arm and pushing at his shoulder, but Johnny finally does it.

" _So_ beyond the call of duty," he mutters. After staring down at him for a few more moments, just trying to take in the absolute surreality of Evan Lysacek passed out in his bed, he moves away and takes up a perch on the uncomfortable armchair in the corner. Evan doesn't seem to be in imminent danger of choking on his own tongue, after all, which is not always the case when he's awake and talking.

He watches for a while. He’s not staying up just to keep an eye on Evan; there are important things he needs to do, like check his email. And Google himself. He fucks around on his laptop for a few hours, and despite his best intentions, he's getting dozy when the phone goes off.

It's the most obnoxious ringtone he's heard in his life; it blares tunelessly like some sort of air raid siren, at a frequency that could probably make your brains start bleeding out your ears. It’s also waking Evan up, and that’s not okay; passed out is like the only state in which Evan is barely tolerable. Johnny can’t allow that.

He manages to find the phone tucked into the pocket of Evan's discarded pants, and wrestles it out before it's rung for the third time, sliding his thumb over the touch screen and cutting the alarm short. He glances over at the bed, and watches Evan stop stirring and go back to sleeping like the dead.

Johnny's never seen someone sleep so hard. It's almost kind of pathetic, and he's not sure why. If Evan wants to kill himself with sleep deprivation, that's totally his choice. He's a grown man, and also an asshole. He runs his fingers over Evan's phone, though, and sets about trying to disable the alarm permanently and put the thing on silent. He tries 1985 first, because Evan seems like the sort of guy who would set his birth year as his code; then 0406, 2007, 2010. At '2576' the touch screen disappears, and Johnny grimaces in sour satisfaction.

He can’t find an extra blanket in the closet, and he’s not going to tuck Evan into bed. It might wake him up, and more importantly, Johnny desperately needs that layer of separation, Evan on top of the covers and Johnny under them. It’s not quite enough; the sort of thick blanket they use to put out fires wouldn’t be enough, but he’s not going to let Evan have his bed and sleep in the chair. He crawls in on the empty side of the bed, pulls the sheets up to his chin, and goes to sleep.

 **iv.**

When Johnny wakes up to the muted chimes of his own phone, he finds himself staring at the back of Evan's head, his hair black and lustreless with sleep.

It's officially the weirdest morning of his life, and he's running so late for his brunch date that he can't even devote any time to freaking out. Evan doesn't stir when Johnny pushes back the blankets and gets out of bed. Johnny doesn't have time to be considerate, or motive, so he gets dressed and clatters around in the bathroom like normal, showers and blow-dries his hair and makes a pained decision between two pairs of pants and three pairs of pointed shoes without censoring himself or trying to be quiet.

Evan's still asleep when he's dressed and coiffed and ready to go, though. His face has eased a little, but there are still faint lines of discontent running from the edges of his nose to the sides of his mouth. His face is unimaginably sallow against the white pillowcase, and his mouth is a little open. He's probably been drooling.

Johnny looks down at him and wonders if Evan knows that exfoliation exists for a reason, and if he always looks grimy with uneven fake tan out of personal choice. You couldn't just not _realise_ , could you?

"Lysacek," he says, raising his voice. "Evan. Wakey-wakey." He shakes Evan's shoulder. He doesn't have time for this. The frown lines in Evan's face deepen, and his eyes screw tighter, but he doesn't wake up. Johnny shakes him again. Nothing happens. He's going to be late, unless he leaves right now, and that's not the impression he's trying to give potential publishers.

"You are not my responsibility," he tells Evan's mutinously sleepy face. "I have done everything I can. I have gone beyond the call of duty. If you sleep through anything important, it's your own stupid fault."

Evan can let himself out. He shakes Evan one last time, for good measure, and because it's fun, and when it proves as fruitless as his earlier attempts and results only in Evan making a small grumbling noise and pressing his face into the pillow, Johnny really really has to go.

 **v.**

He finishes up a very successful power-brunch at around three, and forgoes the pleasure of window-shopping on Rodeo Drive in order to duck back into the hotel and make sure that Evan hadn't trashed the room or any of Johnny's belongings before he left. He really doesn't expect Evan to still be there, let alone still passed out, but when he slides his key card through the lock and pushes the door open there's still someone in his bed.

"Motherfucker," Johnny mutters under his breath, and strides over. Evan is still breathing. Actually, Evan is snoring, a faint nasal whistle that makes Johnny want to kill him worse than usual. "Wake up," he says loudly. "I know you like to be the best at things, but sleeping is not a competitive sport. You've had nearly twelve hours, get the fuck up."

Evan's head flops back and forth when Johnny shakes him, and the snore stops, but when Johnny lets go he just makes a protesting sort of noise and tries to roll over and bury his face in the pillow.

"I'm through babying you," Johnny tells his insensate face. It's a final warning, but Evan doesn’t hear it.

He marches into the bathroom and fills up a glass of water. When he comes back out, he takes aim. It's a beautiful square hit that catches Evan full in the face, and Johnny sets the empty glass on the nightstand and steps back, watching with a certain dark pleasure as Evan splutters into wakefulness.

His long limbs thrash around like a spider having a spasm, and there's water running off his face and onto his neck and slicking his fringe to his forehead. Tiny droplets scatter off his eyelashes when he blinks wildly, clearly trying to figure out where he is and what just happened.

Johnny steeples his fingers in their black faux-leather half-gloves and strikes a sinister pose, waiting for Evan to focus on him.

" _What,_ " Evan says blankly when he does. His face kind of freezes with horror, and okay, maybe Johnny's kind of glad he gets to be here for this, after all. Evan's eyes move from Johnny to the hotel room, back to Johnny, down to his own bare legs, back to Johnny, and then to his own hand when he reaches up and pats the wet hair on his brow. His eyes go back to Johnny, wide with surprise and sharp with a certain hostile, suspicious edge that had been missing last night.

Johnny's almost relieved to see it. Something is right with the universe again. "Hello, Sleeping Beauty," he says, his voice sharp and sweet. "I thought you were never going to wake up."

One day someone should tell Evan that his frozen, blank expression is not the poker face he clearly thinks it is, but it's not going to be Johnny.

"What–" Evan stops and clears his throat. "What am I doing here? What the fuck is going on?"

"Darling, I'm hurt," Johnny says, just for the fun of watching Evan glance down again and back at him, clearly putting _pantsless_ and _Johnny Weir_ together and coming up with _?!!!_ "Don't tell me you don't remember our night of passion.”

Evan’s confused expression curdles into terrified disbelief.

"We didn't," he says, like if he can say it firmly enough it’ll be true. Fascinated, Johnny watches him flush a dull brick colour. It starts in his ears and at the line of his shirt and creeps up his neck, and the more Johnny stares the deeper it gets. "I _wouldn't."_

Johnny raises an eyebrow, and, impossibly, the flush deepens. "Sure about that?"

"I wouldn’t." Evan clenches his jaw. "Tell me what I'm really doing here."

"Well, you wanted to," Johnny says, carefully popping the little buttons on the back of his gloves and pulling them off. He smoothes them out, folds them and lays them carefully on the nightstand beside the water glass, and flashes Evan his best and most poisonous smile. "Luckily, I have standards."

Evan snorts, and Johnny restrains himself from pitching the empty glass at him. “Then why am I here?”

It’s a good question.

"What do you remember?" he prompts, half because he's still enjoying being unhelpful, and half because he's genuinely curious.

Evan looks at him, and Johnny raises his eyebrows a little higher, waiting. Somehow, it works. "The show," Evan says shortly. "Taping, getting changed, and going out. I had a few hours free–"

Suddenly Evan looks horrified, and Johnny wonders what just shook loose inside his bleary little brain.

“I ran into you in a bar,” he says, truthfully enough. “Somewhere in West Hollywood, actually. You were completely shitfaced."

Evan grunts. "And you, what, decided to separate me from the herd?"

"You _hit on me_ ," Johnny says, and the way Evan flinches again is beautiful. "You rubbed your dick on my _leg_ and then you slobbered on my _neck_. So naturally I decided that you were probably on something, and I didn't want to leave you in the club to make a public spectacle of yourself, because I'm a sucker. I totally should have."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care. Believe whatever you want."

Evan still kind of looks like hell. He shakes his head back and forth, slow, like some sort of sacrificial animal brained by a mallet. "I don't get it," he says. "Why would you–"

"My mama brought me up right," Johnny says. "And it was a golden opportunity to take photos of you passed out in your underwear and share them with the internet."

The lost expression clarifies into vindication even as Evan goes chalky under his glaze. "You _asshole_ ," he says. "If you–"

"It was a golden opportunity," Johnny says over the top of his inarticulate threats. "Unfortunately, I don't actually know how to upload photos to the internet, so I had to let it pass."

Evan stares at him a little longer. Then he shakes his head again. "I don't have time for this bullshit. Where's my phone? What have you done with it?"

He glares around the room, and then his eyes catch on it, lying on the floor. He snatches it up, and then turns the glare at Johnny. "It's dead," he says accusingly, pressing the button a few more times, as if that's going to get a different result. The little picture of a depleted battery comes up again.

"I killed it," Johnny says. "It was a deliberate and premeditated attack – for fuck's sake, shaking the baby is not going to help it, Evan. I'll plug it into my laptop, give it here."

"What?"

Johnny shrugs one shoulder. "You can go take a shower while it charges. You look like an actual dead thing."

Evan hesitates, like he suspects a deep-laid trick.

"I'm not messing with you," Johnny says. He feels very tired. Dealing with Evan is emotionally exhausting. "Your unwashed state just offends me."

Evan gives him another suspicious look, but he goes. It's very hard for a person to stand upon their dignity or to make a particularly dignified retreat when they're missing their pants, and from the stiff set of Evan's shoulders, he knows it. The bathroom door closes behind him with a gentle click.

 

 **vi.**

Johnny sits with his legs draped over the side of the armchair, watching Evan's phone charge. When it has enough power to start up, it starts vibrating like a mad thing, in a distinctly ominous manner. He's still watching it buzz and buzz when the running water in the bathroom cuts off and the door opens again, bringing with it a faint miasma of steam.

"What are you doing?" Evan asks loudly, and Johnny rolls his eyes at him. It's patently obvious he's not doing anything. "Did you read my messages?"

"Yes, Evan, I read your messages."

Evan squints like he’s trying to figure out what Johnny’s angle is; is he admitting the truth and trusting that Evan won’t believe it? Is he lying and hoping to make Evan paranoid? Is he assuming Evan will trust that he’s lying and therefore assume he's telling the truth when he's really lying?

"Put some pants on," Johnny suggests unhelpfully. Evan startles a little as he reaches over to take the phone, tightening his grip on the towel preserving his modesty like Johnny's going to peel it off with a sideways glance. Flattering himself, jesus. There's already way too much naked Lysacek in Johnny's immediate periphery – he can see about half of Evan's gross tattoo, which is fifty percent too much – and the last thing he wants to see is more.

Evan's grasp on the towel slackens as he flicks through his messages, and it sags dangerously low on his slim brown hips. He still manscapes to the last inch, Johnny notices, and wonders if Evan justifies his absurd vanity by telling himself it'll make him more aerodynamic on the dance floor or something. He can see all of the tattoo now.

The towel dips a little lower still when Evan's phone starts ringing in his hand, loud and angry. Evan looks at the screen like he might look at a poisonous snake, and makes no move to answer it. His obnoxious ringtone blares and blares.

"Are you going to get that? It's getting really annoying."

Evan keeps staring wordlessly at the phone. Johnny’s kind of impressed by the expression on his face; it’s an _actual_ expression. He thought Evan wasn’t allowed to have those anymore.

The ringing stops, and there's a brief, blessed pause.

When it starts again, Johnny loses patience and grabs for it. He doesn't recognise the number when he answers, but it's not like he would.

"Hello," he says, and steps nimbly out of the reach of Evan's abnormally long arms when Evan tries to grab it back, much too late. "Evan Lysacek's answering service, Johnny Weir speaking. Sir Lysacek is detained in a state of undress, can I take a message?"

There's a deep, dead silence. Evan makes a sort of inarticulate gurgle, and on the other end of the line someone asks "Is this some sort of sick joke?"

“Do you want it to be?”

"Turn it _off_ ," Evan says frantically, and the panic in his voice is so real Johnny hits disconnect without thinking about it. "I can't believe you just did that!"

"Live in the now, Evan," Johnny says heartlessly, tossing the phone back at him. It's a hard, fast throw, and he's annoyed when Evan catches it one-handed without fumbling. "You weren't answering, so don't get mad at me. Who was that, anyway?" The voice had been almost-not quite familiar. It set alarm bells ringing somewhere in Johnny's hindbrain.

"Scott," Evan says, pauses, and when Johnny doesn’t blink, he stresses, "Scott _Hamilton._ "

Johnny laughs. "You're kidding." Evan just looks at him, and it's clear from his expression that he's really not kidding at all, and it's not like he's ever been noted for his highly developed sense of whimsy. Johnny stops laughing. "Seriously?"

"I can't believe you just _did_ that."

"Me neither, but I'm so glad I did," Johnny says, a little hysterically. "Oh my god, can you imagine his face?"

Evan moans, and Johnny feels a faint twinge of conscience. He quashes it.

"Why was he even calling? Does he keep tabs on you a lot? I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if he trailed you around recording your every golden breath and bowel movement, but –"

Evan scrubs a hand through his hair and stares at Johnny like he's the stupid one. "Right now he's my _boss_ ," he says. "I had a flight out first thing this morning to meet up with the tour. And I missed it."

"I did try to wake you up when I left for lunch.” Johnny shrugs. "You were hibernating. It was weird." Evan doesn't say anything. "Sorry?"

There's a long pause. It seems horribly unfair that Johnny actually been trying to do the right thing. Maybe he was born under an unlucky star that doomed him to walk a crooked path for all of his days; it's not the first time he's thought that, the way his best and most disinterested impulses sometimes coil back on him and come out wrong.

"It's not your fault," Evan says at last. It sounds like it pains him to admit that, which Johnny can empathise with. "I still would have missed it. It was a six AM flight. Even if you'd woken me up then–"

"I turned your alarm off," Johnny says, because a concession deserves a confession. "Last night, this morning, or whatever. You looked so tired, I just." He shrugs.

"Oh," Evan says. "Maybe it is your fault, then."

"You were _exhausted_." Ungrateful asshole. "Excuse me for caring, but you just slept twelve hours, and if I hadn't thrown water on you, you'd still be in dreamland. You clearly needed it, and fuck you, what the hell where you doing at a gay bar at nearly two in the morning if you had a flight at six, anyway?"

"I had time!" Evan folds his arms. "We finished taping at midnight and I needed– I blocked the time out," he says defensively. "I had time to get off fast and get to the airport. I was going to sleep on the plane then hit the ice– Wait, you threw water on me?"

It's so stupidly Evan of him to zero in on that, and to not have realised it for himself already. He shakes his head, looking bewildered, and Johnny wants to toss him out a window. "God, you're an asshole."

"If I'm an asshole, you're a crazy person," Johnny says. " _I'm_ a crazy person, and I'm telling you that. You know that insane schedule wouldn't have worked out, even if you hadn't gotten yourself roofied --"

Evan flushes. "No one roofied me," he says. "I was really, really tired, and I don't have much alcohol tolerance anyway–"

"One beer?" Johnny asks. " _One beer_?"

"It was more than one!" Evan tightens his grip on the towel again.

Johnny glances down, and then hastily glances back up, and there’s a weird moment where they blink at each other, realising that they've been having an actual, extended conversation during which Evan has been basically naked.

The awkward moment is interrupted by an unearthly sound; a faint but hideous growling.

"Is that your _stomach?"_

Evan claps a hand to his midsection, looking vaguely embarrassed. "Um."

"Maybe you should go get something to eat," Johnny says. He looks at Evan significantly.

Evan stares back. His eyes are slightly less glassy than they were last night, but they're still dark-circled and confused, and totally not drawing the conclusion Johnny wants him to arrive at.

Subtlety is so overrated, at least where Evan is concerned. "You have a wallet! And a brain, presumably. Use them. Go away."

"I don't have a car," Evan says. "Well, I don't know where my car is. Or my pants."

"Your pants are over there." Johnny jerks his head. "Behind the chair. You should be scourged for wearing drawstring stretch pants to a gay club, by the way. Call a cab." He hesitates, watching Evan trying to pull on his pants and keep his towel firmly in place at the same time, like an awkward dance-of-the-veils. "What are you going to do?"

"Eat something?"

Evan was dropped on his head as a baby. There is no other explanation. "No, you moron," Johnny says, very slowly, so there's no chance of Evan misunderstanding him except through sheer willfulness. "About Stars on Ice. Your show tonight."

"Right now?" Evan shrugs, straightening up like he's come to a conclusion. The pants seem to have given him confidence. "I'm not going to do anything. They're used to doing shows without me, they'll survive."

"What?"

"They can do it without me," Evan repeats. "It's not like I'm skating every date, anyway."

"Oh my god," Johnny says, staring at him. "I think your wiring has fried. Isn't that _unprofessional_? What about the tiny ice-skating babies waiting to get a glimpse of their great Olympic hero? What will you do without your nightly dose of ego massage?"

"They'll have to go without," Evan says firmly. He looks shifty. "Stop trying to make me feel bad about this decision."

"I'm just finding it hard to believe that you're in any way serious.”

"I'm taking a night off. People do that."

"People do that," Johnny agrees. "It's just, I've thought you were many things over the years, Evan, but never a person."

"God, you're an dick." Evan shakes his head like it's still news to him. "I'm serious. I missed a professional commitment. Scott probably thinks I missed that professional commitment in order to _sleep with you_ , shit." He takes a deep breath. Then another. Then a third. "My schedule is completely screwed up and my dance partner probably wants to kill me, along with everyone on the tour. Even if I flew out now, I wouldn't make it, so there's nothing I can do about that right now. I’m going to take a night off, and not think about this mess, and let things take care of themselves for a while."

"Whoever the sports psychologist was who taught you to verbalise your emotions, they should be stripped of their qualifications, dipped in tar, and rolled in feathers." Johnny shivers. "Do you know how creepy it sounds, listening to you work through your mental breakdown in that flat, emotionless voice? It's like a cyborg having a meltdown."

"I am perfectly fine," Evan says, still terribly calm. "I'm just taking a night off." He strides over to the desk and starts patting the papers there. "Have you seen a room service menu?"

"No," Johnny says, and it's not about the menu. "No, no, no."

"I feel like pizza. If I'm letting things go tonight, I should get to eat something bad, right? Maybe Chinese. Or maybe -- you know what I miss?" Evan asks, ignoring him. "Chocolate cake. Chocolate cake that's really rich, so you feel full after one or two bites, and then you keep going. We could get cupcakes." His toothpaste-ad smile is slightly unhinged.

"You're not ordering room service, you're _leaving_ ," Johnny says. "Right now."

 **vii.**

There is a bowl of French fries sitting on Johnny's bed, next to Evan, who is also sitting on Johnny's bed. Johnny is almost completely torn between which fact terrifies him more. He doesn't want Evan there, but Evan seems determined to stay. It's like he's punishing Johnny as passive-aggressively as he can for answering that phone call, and Johnny's vaguely guilty enough about it not to call hotel security and get Evan _thrown_ out. Every other tactic, he's already tried, but insults and flat orders to leave bounce off Evan like rhinoceros hide. He might even resent the fries' presence even more than Evan's.

He seriously can't believe Evan actually ordered them, or that Evan's going to actually eat them. He can smell the salt and grease from here. He can practically taste it.

Evan shoves several into his mouth and chews obviously, and Johnny shudders and looks away.

He has salad. Salad will never betray him.

"I thought you just wanted salad," Evan says, the fourth time Johnny tries to steal a fry. "If you want to share these, I can move the bowl–"

"This is a plot to undermine me," Johnny says. "Move them away." Evan raises his eyebrows and licks salt off his fingertips, which is gross and taunting and completely unfair. “Stop that, I don’t want to see your revolting tongue.”

Evan, right on schedule, sticks his tongue out and waggles it, and okay, Johnny no longer feels like stealing his fries, so that’s an upside. He feels faintly ill.

“Ouch!”

“Don’t whine,” Johnny says. “I could have stabbed with you with the fork instead of just going for the spoon.”

“Psychopath," Evan mutters. He eats another fry, twitches, and then gets up and starts wandering around the hotel room. Johnny watches him narrowly, prepared for any sudden movements or attacks. "You have a minibar, did you know that? There are peanuts!" He taps his fingers on the edge of it, staccato, sounding far more enthusiastic than anyone should ever get about little packets of hotel peanuts.

"Seriously," Johnny says, staring at his back. "You've snapped. You've finally snapped." And it's even worse than that; when he thinks about the fact that he's stealing fries from his arch-nemesis, who is wearing ugly, ugly sweatpants, and not much else, and who he's reluctantly helping hide from Scott Hamilton, who might possibly think he's doing so due to carnal interest in his scrawny orange carcass, he suspects that maybe it's not just Evan who's completely snapped.

"And booze," Evan says, squatting down onto his haunches in order to properly investigate. "These little bottles of whisky and tequila and little cans of beer and stuff."

"Don't touch them," Johnny says. "You might try to lick me again, and I'll have to break your nose." Actually, a perfect excuse to break Evan's nose could be worth a little drool.

" _I didn't lick you_ ," Evan says, like if he says it forcefully enough it'll become true. "Anyway, I'm celebrating."

"Celebrating what?"

"My night off," Evan says. "I'm having a break." He sweeps the contents of the little fridge and cupboard into his weird orangutan arms and wanders ponderously back over. By some small miracle, none of the little bottles escape his bearhug. Poor little bottles, Johnny thinks. He sympathises. He knows what it's like to suffer Evan's foul embraces against your will.

"You know," Evan continues, sitting down, and it's completely obnoxious how completely for granted he's taken the bed _Johnny's_ paying for as his very own – and the shower, and the towels, and the denuded minibar, and the whole room itself – "I hate taking breaks. I hate taking time off. I never know what to do if I'm not working. I don't like wasting time."

"You're demented," Johnny says sincerely. "Why are you even celebrating, then, if you don't like it? Also, you're demented."

"I didn't choose to take tonight off," Evan says, like that makes sense. "So I don't have to feel guilty. I feel really good, actually. I could go for a run or something." He twists his neck, working his head from side to side. Something pops loudly.

This is not reality as Johnny knows it. Something has gone badly wrong in the fabric of the universe. He _has_ completely snapped, right alongside Evan. "Maybe because you actually got some sleep," he says in his best talking-to-kindergartners voice; "I hear that's pretty rejuvenating, but that could be just a rumour."

Evan frowns.

"I can't deal with this completely sober anymore," Johnny says, grabbing a few of the little bottles from Evan's clutches. It's a rescue mission now. "Are you happy? You've driven me to drink."

 

 **viii**

Evan is, barely, more tolerable when he's drunk. Not so drunk that Johnny has to help him walk while trying to fend off his horrible creeper hands, but drunk enough that he turns all relaxed and lazy, not fidgeting and popping his neck and randomly getting up to pace around the room. It doesn't stop him saying stupid shit, but Johnny can tune that out.

Being slightly buzzed himself helps with that. Evan is more tolerable when he's drunk. Johnny doesn't even break his nose when Evan stops talking about how much he hates Michael Weiss and puts a hand the size of a dinner plate on Johnny's knee.

"What are you _doing_?" he says, pushing it away like a poisonous spider. "I warned you, I'll hurt you."

"You won't."

"Try it and see," Johnny says sweetly. "Please."

"You haven't moved away," Evan points out doggedly, and it's true, somehow he's shifted himself incrementally into Johnny's personal bubble. He smells like a brewery, because he's the kind of idiot who actually drinks the minibeer first when there are teeny little bottles of vodka looking for a good home. Johnny was feeling too mellow and too amused by the attacks on Weiss's character to do anything violent about it, but if Evan's going to be a moron, he totally will.

Evan's hand keeps hovering aimlessly in the air by his knee. Obviously he's not a hundred percent certain Johnny _won't_ break his nose. Johnny's not a hundred percent certain he won't, either, although slapping might work just as well to repulse him, and he already knows that slapping Evan around is fun.

Breaking his nose might be unnecessarily cruel, since Evan's face is basically all nose, especially close up like this. On the other hand, it might prompt him into getting a nose job or something, and it's not like his face can get any worse, so Johnny might be doing him a favour by accident. It's such a gross face. The drowsy black eyes are basically the only thing left of the gangly kid he'd been forever ago, when he'd been kind of cute in a really awkward way and he'd seemed nicer and about a thousand percent less douchey. It had been some sort of long con, concealing his true, weaselly nature until he was in position to start backstabbing.

"Are you like this every time you drink? Is that why you don't drink at banquets or anything? You're afraid you'll get handsy with the judges or the underage ice dancers?"

"I don't drink during the season because alcohol has too many empty calories," Evan says like the boring canned-answer-delivering robot he is, but his ears go slightly oranger. "Tonight I'm having a night off, though, so..."

"It's barely seven."

"What?"

"Never mind," Johnny says. "Just keep your hands to yourself."

Evan looks stubborn. "It's my night off."

Johnny has a sudden, hideous inkling of what a night off from being Evan Lysacek actually means to Evan. License to drink, and to eat shitty food, and to sleep, and to indulge in basically everything he customarily denies himself all the rest of the time; because it's his night off, and it's not his fault. "No," he says. "I don't care if you want to stuff yourself with calories, but I'm not part of your – whatever."

Evan's brow creases slowly like he's thinking hard. Johnny hopes it hurts. "I'm already getting in trouble for it," he says. "I don't see why I shouldn't just go for it, if he already thinks I'm doing it."

Lysacek Logic is as twisted and bizarro as Johnny suspected. "I can't even tell you how little I care about what Scott Hamilton thinks you're doing with your dick."

"I don't – whatever," Evan says. His palm stops hovering and lands with great care in the same place, light as a butterfly. Johnny's about to swat it when Evan tightens his grip, his fingertips sinking into the muscle of Johnny's thigh through the tight denim. "Please. Weir. I'll make it worth your time."

It's officially completely tragic that Paris isn't here to hear this, or that Johnny didn't take the precaution of setting up some kind of recording system in advance, just in case. He doesn't actually have any idea how to secretly wiretap a room, but it's obviously a neglected skill he could really use in everyday life. "Seriously, it's like you have some sort of disorder. Just add alcohol and you're all over me like a rash. You wouldn't do it sober."

"I wouldn't do it if it counted," Evan corrects him. "Things don't count on a night off. And I meant get laid last night, but that didn't work out–"

"Are you _seriously implying_ that I have a _responsibility_ to get you off because I stopped someone gross taking advantage of you last night?"

"No, I didn't mean–" Evan breaks off, looking frustrated. "I don't – just let me suck your dick, okay?"

"I bet you say that to all the boys," Johnny says automatically. Evan flinches a little, like he actually does. It's kind of pathetic, but it's not like Johnny's going to pity him. He can't think of anyone who deserves less pity for being a self-denying asshole bigot. "Do you really think I'm such a rampant manwhore I'll sleep with anyone who offers? How completely unflattering."

Evan's encroaching hand is honestly less objectionable than his offensive proposal. It's warm against his knee, human, and when Johnny says that, the long fingers tighten even more.

"You wouldn't do it when you were sober," Johnny repeats, although Evan's nowhere near as shitfaced as last night.

He's probably barely tipsy, like Johnny, because he's no longer sleep-deprived and it won't be hitting him like a ton of bricks. It's strangely satisfying to have proof that Evan does seem to want to bone him when he's not all strange and roofied. It's still disturbing, obviously, but no matter what shit he pulls in the future, Johnny will be able to smirk at him and know that, and Evan will know that and know that he knows. Johnny hopes it'll make him writhe, although when he thinks about it, it's not likely they'll have to meet again that often, not if one or both of them actually retire. That's a relief, and kind of strange to fully realise, after having to compete against him over and over and over again for so long.

"You only want to suck my dick?" Johnny asks, his mouth moving just a step ahead of his brain like it does way too often, and okay, maybe he's more than a little buzzed. Evan straightens a little, the pettish look sliding off his face. His fingers flex and relax.

"Yeah," he says.

"And it doesn't count," Johnny says, more a statement than a question.

"It doesn't count," Evan confirms. He tilts his head, and Johnny feels his breath against his ear, damp and hot.

He leans in very slowly, Evan's face looming larger and larger, then stops. He can't actually do this. No matter how drunk he is or how long it's been since he got a gift blowjob, no matter how much he want to sit across a room from Evan and smirk and make him die with shame at the memory, he just can't kiss Evan Lysacek. Full stop. Even if Evan's nose wasn't in the way, he just couldn't.

Evan blinks at him, waiting. His lips are a little parted. "What?"

"I can't do it," Johnny says, sitting back. "Scott Hamilton will just have to think the worst of you."

Evan's eyes go narrow and angry like he thinks Johnny was fucking with him on purpose, the whole time. Johnny wishes he was. He opens his mouth – to taunt him more, possibly, or to unruffle his feathers, he's not sure – and Evan lunges. His mouth smashes against Johnny's, and Johnny's pretty sure it's more to shut him up than because passion has overwhelmed him. It doesn't feel amazing. It's just Evan's teeth banging into his lip and Evan's mouth at entirely the wrong angle and Evan's jaw all scratchy with a day of growth. He doesn't have a lot of facial hair; it's just that when he has even a little, he looks mangy.

Then Evan pushes his hands through his hair, and it doesn't hurt, but Johnny's horribly aware that _Evan Lysacek_ is mauling his _hair_ with his enormous horrible hands. He's about to pull free and fight his way to the balcony and fresh, sobering air when Evan tilts his head and suddenly the angle doesn't entirely suck so much anymore.

Johnny’s never devoted much thought to how Evan kisses, but if he had, he would have guessed sloppy and enthusiastic and kind of gross, like Evan himself when he’s not in competitive mode or trying to sound like a elder statesman at press panels. He’s not a complete loss, though. If Johnny closes his eyes and pretends it’s not Evan, it’s not completely awful. Part of him is automatically into it, suddenly hungry.

It's been a while since he pulled out his little black book and let off a little steam. It's not something he likes to do a lot, because it might be fun while it lasts, but he usually feels shitty afterwards. Johnny has absolutely nothing against casual sex. It's a beautiful enlightened concept. It just doesn't work so well for him sometimes, no matter how he tries. He still finds it hard to separate sex from feeling, even now, a million gay scene years after his first love and his first heartbreak.

There's no such problem with Evan. Johnny doesn't feel anything except general annoyance and a hardwired reaction he can't really help when it comes to making out, to having a guy's chest sliding against his, to having someone clean and male and muscled close up like this.

He pulls away anyway. "I don't want to kiss you," he says. "You get to suck my dick. That's all."

 

 **ix.**

Evan gives surprisingly decent head. It's actually better than decent, but Johnny doesn't want to be too complimentary even in his own internal narrative. He wouldn't have supposed that Evan would have much in the way of technique, since it's not like he must be able to practice all that often, between his crazy schedule and his terrible lifestyle choices, but Evan sucks cock like he really enjoys it, like it’s something he does a lot, like it’s something he’s put a lot of work into.

Johnny didn't plan to give Evan any positive feedback, but it turns out it's not something he can help doing, so he runs his hands through Evan’s hair and then twists them tight. He tries not to make any noise, not to pull at Evan’s hair, but he doesn't always quite manage, and Evan seems to take each accidental slip as a spur to further enthusiasm.

If he watches Evan doing it, it’s going to be over too soon, so Johnny closes his eyes. It makes it easier to think that it's someone else, some stranger picked up in that bar after all. It’s good manners to warn when you’re close, but Johnny’s never bothered with manners when it comes to Evan Lysacek, and if Evan knows anything, he won’t be surprised.

He’s still annoyed when Evan doesn’t flinch or choke or anything. He swallows neatly, as competently as he sucks cock, and pulls back. There’s something self-satisfied about the way he throws himself down on the mattress next to Johnny, and then heaves himself up to lean on his elbow and stare curiously down at him.

Johnny ignores him as long as he can. "What?"

"Well?" Evan nudges at his shoulder with his beaky nose, clearly waiting for a response.

"What, do you want me to score you? Of course you do, what am I even saying." Johnny closes his eyes. "It was passable, I guess."

"Liar," Evan says, and he's lucky that Johnny feels so beautifully relaxed right this minute, because otherwise the smugness in his voice would get him pushed off the bed. "You liked it."

"Getting head?" Johnny opens his eyes, and Evan's face is peering at him, way too close, and he's smiling. Ugh. "I'm predictable like that."

The smile doesn't waver. "You _really_ liked it."

Johnny tries to scowl at him, but post-orgasm his facial muscles aren’t really capable of that kind of vehemence, even when Evan nuzzles his shoulder again and rubs suggestively against his hip.

"What?"

"You owe me.”

"I don't owe you _anything_ ," Johnny says, but he's suggestible right after he's gotten off, and overly susceptible to being guilted. Evan can tell, because his complacent smile broadens. "Fuck you."

Fair is fair. He doesn't bother sitting up, but he rolls over and grazes his hand down Evan's side, from his ribs to his hip, then finds Evan's dick. He really needs lube to make a decent job of this, but his bottle is in his toiletries bag in the bathroom, and he's not getting up to get it for Evan's sake.

Evan has his head tipped back sideways, almost touching against Johnny's, and their shoulders actually are touching. They both watch Johnny's hand move like it's the most fascinating spectacle, and after a minute or two Johnny stops and spits in his palm.

"If you think that's gross, tell me now and I'll go find something better," he offers, because he's feeling nicer and he enjoys the sounds Evan’s making. He likes feeling in control.

"No, it's hot," Evan says thickly, which is totally the right answer, and when Johnny wraps his hand back around him he groans at the extra slickness and jerks his hips. "It's like, it's like it's your mouth."

"It's not like it's my mouth, you idiot. If it was my mouth, you'd know it. I'm very good with my mouth."

Evan nods like he agrees, totally, just on Johnny’s say-so, and Johnny pauses, his hand going still. Evan makes a protesting noise and bucks his hips a little, so Johnny gives him one long, slow stroke, then stops again.

“Better than you can imagine, and I bet you have," he says, watching, and Evan’s face gives it away.

Johnny normally likes his partners chatty, but this is interesting in its own way. It's not like Evan's unappreciative. He rubs his thumb slowly, teasing, and listens to Evan pant, watches his eyes screw up.

"Good?"

"Mm," Evan manages. "Uh. Yeah." He seems to be a thousand times more inarticulate in bed than he is out of it, which is really saying something.

“Shit,” Johnny says, annoyed, and takes his hand away. He really didn’t want to get up, and now he’s going to have to.

Evan whines, and when Johnny doesn’t go back to what he was doing, he opens his eyes and looks at him.

“What?”

“Stay there,” Johnny orders. “Don’t jerk off or anything, just wait.”

He gets up and makes his way into the bathroom, washes his hands, and starts rummaging through his toiletries. He officially owns too much crap. Correction; he officially packs too much crap when he travels. You can never actually own too much crap. Mascara, toner, eyelash curler, moisturizer for dry conditions, moisturizer for humidity –

Condoms and lube, zipped hopefully into one of the many compartments of his giant bag. He takes them out and sets them on the counter, and looks at himself in the mirror.

Johnny-in-the-mirror has terrible hair. His mouth is redder than usual, the skin around it pink from Evan’s stubble. There are a few faint marks on his neck. They probably wouldn’t show up at all if he wasn’t so pale, but there they are, under the white bright overhead light. Evan Lysacek has had his mouth on him. Has had his mouth _all over_ him. It’s a totally revolting thought.

He could come out of the bathroom and just order Evan to leave. He could throw Evan’s pants at him just as he’s closing the door. He could keep the pants and leave Evan naked and hard and angry in the hallway, and put his iPod on to drown out the yelling and door-thumping. Maybe that would feel better than doing this.

He grabs what he needs and walks back out. Evan’s sitting up against the headboard, watching him, and while Johnny didn’t actually explicitly order him not to move, it still feels like he’s ignored what he told him.

“Did you touch yourself?”

Evan shakes his head. His eyes move from Johnny’s face to the things in his hands, and Johnny has to give him this one, his face doesn’t change at all.

"Good." He walks over to stand beside the bed, and just looks down at Evan for a moment. He doesn't get to be taller than him very often, even when he's on the top of a podium and Evan's in second or third.

Evan looks away, down at the bland hotel bedspread, but the line of his throat moves when he swallows; once, twice, too fast.

Johnny puts everything but the lube onto the nightstand, and squirts some into the center of his palm. Evan's eyes startle up at the sound, dark and – what? Johnny doesn't know. He doesn't get Evan. He doesn't want to. He reaches for Evan's dick instead, and Evan closes his eyes and shudders when Johnny finally touches him again.

The lube makes everything slick and easy, and Evan relaxes into it and back against the pillows, the tension melting out of his shoulders. He makes lazy, contented noises in the bottom of his throat as Johnny jerks him off, but they're less satisfying than before, not as gratifying as every rough little sound Johnny forced out of him. It's more like the kind of reaction he'd expect if Evan was getting a straightforward massage.

It's almost like Evan liked it better, rougher, when Johnny was working him up almost dry. Which is crazy, but Evan's kind of crazy, so Johnny stops jerking him and wipes his palm off on Evan's thigh. "You're not into it," he says flatly.

Evan blinks at him. Then, when Johnny doesn't start up again, he sits up. "What? I am!"

"Not enough," Johnny says. "I could do this for half an hour, and I don't think you'd get off."

"But I still _like_ it," Evan protests, like Johnny doesn't have better things to do with his time than engage in unnecessarily drawn-out foreplay with him.

Johnny rolls his eyes. "Well, I don't have enough patience for that. Lie back."

"What are you going to do?" Evan asks mistrustfully, but he leans back and watches Johnny, barely blinking, his face as impassive as before. Johnny has the sudden weird suspicion that he could do _anything,_ and Evan would let him.

That's a dangerous thought, and Johnny doesn't want to do too many things to Evan Lysacek anyway. He doesn't answer, but he grabs one of the condoms and tears it open. Evan runs the tip of his tongue between his lips.

"Don't get excited," Johnny says dryly. He didn't pack gloves, so he rolls it over his first and second fingers. It's oily and weird-feeling and a loose fit, but it'll do, he's pretty sure. Evan blinks at him like he can't imagine what Johnny is possibly planning, which only confirms Johnny's opinion of his intelligence. He holds perfectly still, though, until Johnny gets back onto the bed and settles, kneeling in the empty space between his legs. His eyes flicker again.

Johnny hadn't actually meant to use his mouth, but on impulse he bends his head forward and swipes at Evan's dick with the flat of his tongue. The lube tastes fake and a little nasty, but the reaction is worth it; Evan makes a breathless, almost pained sound, like he's been punched in the stomach.

"That's right," Johnny says, meaningless encouragement, and when he goes down _properly_ , Evan's hips jerk up, convulsive. Which is not okay. Johnny's not going to let him set the pace, control this in _any_ way, so he gets hold of Evan's thighs and keeps them spread wide, pelvis tilted. He keeps Evan pinned like that and plays with him until he's sure he's driving him completely demented; light, shallow licking and mouthing that never gives Evan the depth he wants, until Evan gets louder and louder and more frustrated. Then he stops.

Evan looks wrecked, just from that. His stupid hair has gone curly from the shower and the heat, and sweat has broken out over the bridge of his nose, the dip of his collarbone. He's panting, ragged little breaths, and when Johnny raises his eyebrows, he scowls back at him.

Johnny expects him to complain, or to say something douchey like 'Stop fucking around'; instead, Evan closes his eyes and turns his head. It's both an invitation and a strange sort of surrender. _I could do anything_ , Johnny thinks again, and this time it's almost a feverish sort of feeling.

He doesn't. It's time to go back to the original plan. He's fucked up the condom, so he pulls it off and replaces it, and slicks up a little more with the lube. Evan watches him with slitted eyes, and when Johnny's ready, he doesn't have to do anything; Evan brings his knees up and apart, wide open. It's the hottest thing Johnny's ever seen him do, and completely disturbing. "Oh, fuck," he says, and Evan smirks a little.

It's familiar and annoying and it reorients him; what the fuck is he doing? Why is he doing this?

"Come on," Evan says, and Johnny really, really wants to strand him in the hallway without his pants. It would be amazing. It would be a beautiful memory he could cherish forever, unlike the past, what, fifteen minutes? Twenty, thirty? " _Please_ ," Evan adds, and he actually sounds like he means it.

"I told you, don't give me orders," Johnny says irritably, but he runs the sticky latex down the inside of Evan's thigh. Evan relaxes a little, the strained tendons losing definition. Johnny slides his fingers over the head of his dick - god, he's literally wearing a finger condom, and there's no one he can tell about this who'll understand why it's so funny - teasing again, but this time they know he means it, and Evan doesn't protest. "Okay," he says, mostly to himself, and then he brings them down further, past the crease of Evan's hip, further. He stops for a moment.

It's a decision he still can't quite bring himself to make, and in the end Evan makes it for him, canting his hips enough that the very tips of Johnny's fingers press into him, shifting greedily against the mattress. If Johnny was feeling petty – well, pettier – he could make Evan work for it again, indefinitely, or make him do all the work himself. But the reason he's doing this was to speed things up, not fuck around, so he swats at Evan's thigh warningly and slides his fingers further.

Evan makes the punched sound again, his face going slack. It's tight, but surprisingly easy to work them in; normally Johnny would start with one, slowly, but he doesn't want to waste time, and he still doesn't have any gloves with him, so that's not exactly an option. He's not touching Evan without a barrier.

"Oh god," Evan says, slurred together, _ohgod,_ , and moves his head around restlessly. His legs try to spread wider, but he doesn't order Johnny to hurry up again, so Johnny rewards him by going deeper, crooking his fingers inside him. The reaction _that_ gets is more that satisfying; his back arches, shoulders lifting up off the pillows, and Johnny can actually see his toes curl.

Good. This is is going to be fast. He fucks Evan roughly with his fingers, the way he's pretty sure Evan likes it, switching the rhythm every time he thinks Evan's getting used to it. Evan proves him right, thrashing around and making completely stupid amounts of noise. The people in the next room are probably calling reception on them.

He thinks about sucking Evan off again at the same time, but it seems like too much work, and he didn't mean to go down on him in the first place. Stupid muscle memory and reflex. Johnny jerks him off with his free hand instead, hard and mean, and Evan flails harder and actually manages to bang his head against the wall.

He's right; it happens fast. Amazingly, Evan comes quietly, like he's finally worn his voice out, and slumps back completely boneless back into the pillows.

Johnny stares at him. The adrenaline, whatever was pushing him on, suddenly evaporates, and leaves him feeling empty and a little sick. A lot sick, actually, like he was so focused on getting from point A to destination B, on skin and flesh, that he forgot the bigger picture and exactly what he was doing to whom, and now he has a spray of Evan Lysacek's disgusting bodily fluids on his wrist, a small smear of it on his chest.

He fumbles for the baby wipes, tearing the packet open with his teeth, and wipes frantically. _Uncleanuncleanuncleanunclean–_

"You're really kind of a neat freak," Evan says beside him, his voice slow as treacle. "I thought maybe you were playing that up."

"I'm covered in your fucking jizz," Johnny says tightly. "Of course I'm cleaning up."

Evan closes his eyes and, impossibly, relaxes more, like he's trying to meld with the mattress. "Dries gross."

Johnny really has fucked his brain offline. Unfortunately, Evan persists in talking despite that handicap. "No shit." He tosses the packet of wipes pointedly at Evan; it lands squarely in the center of his stomach, but he doesn't flinch or react. Johnny dumps the rest of the mess on his way to the bathroom. He's not going to feel halfway clean without brushing his teeth and taking a shower.

When he finishes up and comes back into the bedroom, Evan seems to be asleep on top of the covers again, just where he left him, although it looks like he made a half-hearted effort with the wipes. Johnny peels back the comforter and gets into bed gingerly, trying not to wake him. The last thing he needs is more of Evan's edifying conversation.

He thinks he's pulled it off, but then Evan rolls over. He cracks open an eye and squints through his eyelashes, obsidian. "Hey."

"Hi," Johnny says warily.

"I'm hungry again. Doesn't sex make you hungry?"

"What?"

"Hungry," Evan says. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of bed. " _Starving._ "

Being stuck with Evan for a certain length of time is apparently like having a large orange gigapet. You meet one need, and then, immediately, there's another. It's not a cycle Johnny intends to play any further part in.

"I think -- yeah," Evan says, and he's found the half-full bowl of French fries, cold and limp and completely unappetising and _he's bringing them back into bed._

"Oh my god," Johnny says, a little hysterical. "I think you might be the most revolting person I've ever met. I mean, I've thought that for a while, but now I have proof."

Evan makes some sort of grunt and starts eating. He’s still naked, and sitting cross-legged on the bed with the half-empty bowl set before him. Johnny watches him eat, half out of fascinated disgust, half out of genuine curiosity.

Evan eats with as much focus as he sleeps, when he lets go for a little while and actually lets himself. He doesn't eat like a person thinking about carbohydrates and starches and saturated fats, like he's calculating exactly how every bite is going to need to be worked off, and balancing it against the energy he needs to do that. He eats like he's enjoying every cold, greasy bite.

“You're not going back, are you?"

"To Stars on Ice?" Evan concentrates on chewing. He takes a while to answer, like he enjoys the momentary state of freedom that exists between the question and its inevitable answer, and he doesn't want to give it up too soon. Maybe Johnny’s just giving him too much credit. Maybe he can’t eat and think at the same time. "I have to. I’m contracted. I already got them to organize a flight for me in the morning."

"To competing," Johnny says. "You're done."

Evan shrugs. "Don't know."

“You do know." It feels important, making Evan admit it, and at the same time Johnny's suddenly incredibly annoyed by everything about him, more than ever, by the stupid unfinished red tattoo on Evan’s shoulder, the way he chews, the fact that he had sex with him. He can’t believe he had sex with him. There's not enough exfoliant _in the world._ “Don’t bullshit me. You’re done.”

Evan lifts a shoulder. He keeps eating.

“I’m done,” Johnny says, and it’s the first time he’s really said it out loud and meant it.

Anything Evan says or tries to say to that will be wrong. Johnny knows that. He can feel the hot coil of irritation and nameless emotion under his skin; he knows that any possible response will make him want to claw and lash and draw blood -- but Evan still doesn't say anything, he looks down and studies the bedspread, most of his face completely obscure. That's almost worse, because the frustration, all the feeling, has nowhere to go. It's almost worse because actually admitting that he's already made his decision, made it weeks and months ago, that _matters_ , and Evan can't even be bothered to respond. Saying it out loud was just as pointless and empty as the rest of this whole thing is.

At the same time, Johnny's said it. He's done. In its own way, it's a relief, and what Evan thinks doesn't matter any more now than he does.

After a while, Evan shifts restlessly and gets up. He sets the empty bowl down on the carpet and finds and puts on his boxers. He scrubs at his stomach with the wipes again. Then he starts to tug back the covers on his side of the bed.

"In the morning, when you leave," Johnny says. "Don't wake me up. I need my beauty sleep."

Evan pauses for a moment. He looks like he doesn't know whether to be relieved or offended. As Johnny watches he shuffles both emotions tidily away. Sometimes Johnny almost forgets that there's a calculating brain behind the bland face, and possibly, somewhere, an actual feeling human being.

"Okay," Evan says indifferently. "Whatever."

Johnny rolls onto his side, and switches the lights out at the headboard. He doesn't bother saying good night.


End file.
